A tale of two crashes

Post by **randi** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:19 pm

Which style of crash report do you like better? The one on the top or the one on the bottom? The one on the top requires you to copy-and-paste it into a post on the bugs forum. The bottom one requires you to click just one button. Feel free to answer in the comments.

Old versions of ZDoom report crashes like this:

The next version of ZDoom will probably report them something like this:

Edit: Update the second window to a newer design.

Wasted Youth · Post by **Wasted Youth** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:22 pm

I like the new one.

BouncyTEM · Post by **BouncyTEM** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:22 pm

new one, definitely.

Mike.Reiner · Post by **Mike.Reiner** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:22 pm

The one on the bottom seems like it would be more convenient...
not to mention those who would not even bother copying and pasting, would probably be more
willing to do it if they didnt need to go in and post it on the forums...
so i say, the bottom.

Post by **Enjay** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:24 pm

Does the one at the bottom auto-post in the bugs forum so that people could suggest solutions, identify duplicates, share similar experiences etc or do they just go to you? If they do just go to you, do you normally find discussion of the type mentioned useful?

Other than that, I have no real preference. People may be more inclined to simply click a button everytime there is a crash rather than copy, log onto zdoom, make a new post and paste (ie old method). So you might get more info. However, some people are always suspicious of programs that contact the internet and they may not like it as much.

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:24 pm

Nightmares of Miocrosoft surface. Please don't - as convenient as it looks...

(Ok, that's just my personal opinion. I won't use such a feature for sure and I fear all it will do is to increase the amount of useless bug reports.)

Post by **Enjay** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:27 pm

Also, what about your ability to get back to the person who posted the report using the second version if you should want to get clarification of something?

Post by **Kate** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:30 pm

I'd say make it transparent, IE have it explain what it's doing and point you to the resulting post or email or whatever it sent, so the person knows exactly what ZDoom's doing with the log.

Mike.Reiner · Post by **Mike.Reiner** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:33 pm

well, you could set it so that it also has a section on it where you can enter an e-mail address,
that and make a third button so that users that would prefer coping and pasting so they could
post it on forums.... its good to keep things optional.

Post by **Kate** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:36 pm

Actually if that dialog is as similar to the XP crash dialog as I think it is that little blue "click here" hyperlink will reveal the full crash log.

Post by **randi** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:38 pm

Clicking the hyperlink shows this dialog:

Graf Zahl wrote:I won't use such a feature for sure

Why not? Would it help if it had a save to disk button?

Mike.Reiner · Post by **Mike.Reiner** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:43 pm

Ah haha cool cool

wildweasel · Post by **wildweasel** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:44 pm

I'm undecided - the old one is more unique and less like Microsoft's "Oh, we know this program sucks, but tell Microsoft about it instead because the programmer doesn't need to know" error message, but the new one is more convenient-looking.

I'm not sure how the new one could be changed to look less like Microsoft's, but there needs to be some differentiation (so I don't just disregard the crash and click "Don't Send" every time).

Post by **Graf Zahl** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:46 pm

wildweasel wrote: I'm not sure how the new one could be changed to look less like Microsoft's, but there needs to be some differentiation (so I don't just disregard the crash and click "Don't Send" every time).

And that can easily happen. Many users simply assume that this is Microsoft's doing, ignore the crash log and potentially come to the forum whining 'I can't tell you what happened because I don't want to send the data to Microsoft.'

Post by **Enjay** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 5:47 pm

The error report contains these files:
report.txt
minidump.mdmp
local.txt
userinfo.txt

That list would be enough to put some people off. Where are these files? Where did they come from? How easily can a user find them to analyse the content? Files with names like userinfo.txt may alarm some people "OMG it must have my credit details etc in it".

What about the other questions - like how easily would these reports become forum posts? I can imagine someone wanting to send you a crash report, but possibly also wanting to report it publicly and discuss it. Thier "work" has now doubled if this doesn't report to the forum. Although, if a lot of these are generated, they would clutter the forum.